


Arrival

by Prix



Category: Steins;Gate
Genre: Bonding, F/M, Mutual Pining, Post-Canon, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-09
Updated: 2020-12-09
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:41:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27972512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix
Summary: Kurisu arrives back in Japan.
Relationships: Okabe Rintarou | Hououin Kyouma/Makise Kurisu
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19
Collections: Mistletoe Exchange 2020





	Arrival

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Smile_Edgeworth](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smile_Edgeworth/gifts).



> I hope you enjoy this! Inspired by your prompts and how much it sucks to fly from the US to Japan.

As the airplane starts to slowly descend in elevation and Kurisu’s ears pop uncomfortably, she squirms in the seat. The guy next to her nods in and out of consciousness, and she almost envies him. Finally getting out of the plane is still almost an hour away. 

Sleep has come and gone for the past twelve or so hours, but dreams – for her – have become strange things that make her grateful for the relative certainty of being awake. She dreams of being in Japan in a small little apartment above a television store, only she has never been there in her life. 

She knows she has, but she also has learned that reality is complicated. 

She doesn’t dare tell anyone back in the States, not even Maho who would never believe her. 

Why should she? All of this is crazy. 

And yet here she is, trying to squirm in her seat onto some spot of her buttocks or lower back that hasn’t had its fill of sitting still. 

Kurisu’s mind drifts to yet more tests she could volunteer herself for – surreptitious as to their purpose – to _understand_ the memories that she has not earned but which become more a part of her every time she drifts off to sleep. 

She is started and then relieved at the sudden feeling of buoyancy and then being anchored to the ground as the plane makes its first contact with the runway. The loud sounds and the pull of gravity are promising that she will finally be allowed to stand up in a half hour or so. 

She knows she has made this trip once before, but it seems as though more than a year and a half has gone by. The closer she gets to visiting the friends she hardly knows, the more she knows that she will be confronting the strange sense of being lost in her own life until she figures it out. 

Back home, at work, she can almost pretend that nothing ever changed. But then she looks at her phone or turns on her laptop, and the evidence is everywhere, not in earth-shattering research but in strings of messages and posts and emails and texts. 

She’s more confident about speaking Japanese now than she had been when she had arrived in July of 2010. 

At long last, the plane taxis to a crawl and finally stops, the announcements sounding over the speakers first in English and then in Japanese. Kurisu bolts to her feet and feels blood rush down through her legs. She plucks her carry-on from the overhead bins and slowly files out of the plane, concentrating on not sounding too crazy if they ask her anything at the customs desk.

* * *

Okabe Rintarou hugs his winter coat to himself. It is thicker and warmer than his lab coat, and it feels strange to be waiting for Kurisu wearing anything but his old raggedy t-shirt and the lab coat. Faris and Daru had insisted that he should _dress to impress_ , though, and Mayuri had helped him actually pick out his clothes. 

He thinks he would do almost anything to humor Mayuri, and he wonders idly if she’s ever going to take advantage of that fact. He smiles ruefully to himself as he shuffles in the arrivals area again, trying to look inconspicuous. He is tall for a Japanese man, and he knows that this will likely make him easy for Kurisu to spot. He just wonders if she’ll recognize him again. 

He wishes that some of the others had come along to greet her. 

Faris and Mayuri both had work. 

Daru was conveniently spending the day with Yuki, and they had both _encouraged_ him in their own way. 

He would not impose upon Ruka to make her come along when she was so shy. He knew that Ruka would inconvenience herself to the ends of the Earth for him, even if she was more settled now, and he didn’t feel right about it. 

And there were others he could have asked, but politeness dictated that he shouldn’t, and each and every one of them had promised to be there to see Kurisu the next day at her “Welcome Back!” party at the lab (which wasn’t really a lab). 

“And so I must conclude...” Okabe orated to himself, low enough not to startle any bystanders, “that it is a set-up.” 

His shoulders slumped and his heart raced. He was afraid that it was entirely inappropriate, and the weight of being worried about whether or not things were inappropriate was still an unfamiliar one. He thought that maybe he’d worried about it a lot more once, somewhere far away, but Hououin Kyouma seems like an ill-fitting costume for today. 

Maybe it’s just the dreary, cold weather.

* * *

Kurisu tugs a rolling suitcase behind her and her carry-on over her shoulder. Successfully through customs without being nearly detained – something more than Okabe could say for his visit to the States – she has nothing to hide behind. She sets her jaw a little and then tries to unwind it as she holds her head high and drags her belongings along. 

She glances over the sea of people at the arrivals gate. She is searching for a tall silhouette in a ragged lab coat, even if it is December. 

She does not see him right away, and that’s when the exhaustion starts to creep over her, and she wants to rub at her eyes, but it’s too awkward with her luggage. She frowns and thinks of what she is going to say to him when he does find her. 

Then it occurs to her that maybe she should look for the others too, but Mayuri had told her Okabe would be _happy_ to pick her up. For an instant her skin crawls, and she knows she is making up any creepy intent on his part, but it’s something to stew in while her hips and backside ache from the long flight, and she wants nothing more than a bath and a bed. 

She sighs and moves past the crowd at the arrivals gate, looking around at the crowd from behind. 

She starts and feels hair stand on end on the back of her neck when such a _familiar_ voice speaks her name from the side. 

“Kurisu?” he asks, and her name sounds well-worn on his tongue. And she really wishes she weren’t thinking about his _tongue_ and she really wants to brush hers with toothpaste, and… 

She looks up at sees Okabe’s eyes. _Rintarou_ , she thinks, already all-too-familiar. 

“Took you long enough,” is the first thing she says. 

He smiles at her, and for a moment she feels almost sad. She knows that there used to be a person in there who would have met her with an immediate jab. There is grief there; _trauma_ , her education tells her. She stares up and blinks at him, waiting for the opportunity not to apologize and make him feel even worse. 

Then she realizes why she had not recognized him right away. 

“Where’s the coat?” 

“Ah, I knew you’d miss it, faithful Assistant,” Okabe replies. 

She glares at him, but she is a bit relieved all the same. 

“Finally ruined it at the laundromat, huh?” Kurisu quips. 

“Perish the thought,” Okabe replies. “I merely thought all of these people might identify me as a person of interest should I wear my uniform here. You never know which of them might be an informant for the Organization.” 

Kurisu can tell that he is putting on a show for her more than himself now, but he seems to fall into it with relative ease. It’s bittersweet, but it’ll have to do. At least until she figures out that right question to ask. 

She realizes it’s her turn in the conversation. 

“Well, are you just gonna stand there and spout delusions until they haul you away here, too?” she asks. 

Okabe inclines his head to indicate that she should follow. 

“Come with me. The Lab has procured funds to ship your very large suitcase to your hotel by the end of the day tomorrow,” he announces officiously. 

He makes no move to take either of her bags from her as he turns around, hands still stuffed in his winter coat’s pockets. Kurisu bristles, even as she notices that it is more stylish than she would have expected him to have. 

She clears her throat, like a word. 

Okabe turns to look at her, confused. 

“I’ve been on an airplane for thirteen hours,” she says flatly. 

When he does not immediately catch on, she catches up to his side and tugs him by the elbow, extricating his hand. Then, she presses the hard plastic handle of her rolling suitcase into his palm, wrapping his fingers around it. Her fingers linger over his a moment longer than is necessary as she looks up at him. 

She doesn’t know which of them blushes or blinks first, but soon they start moving again, some of the weight off her shoulders and a new one added on.

* * *

Okabe isn’t sure how he ends up walking Kurisu all the way to her hotel room door. It’s a nice place, and it’s warm inside the building. Maybe it’s that he’s afraid if he takes his eyes off her – now that they’re on her – that something bad will happen to her. That there’s no way this worldline is actually real. Or maybe it’s just that he doesn’t want to take his eyes off her and that’s as convenient an excuse as any. 

He watches her fiddle with her key-card, and he reaches out to touch the strap of her carry-on bag. 

“Do you want me to hold it?” he asks. 

She looks up at him quickly as if a little startled by his touch. He hadn’t meant to _touch her_ and his hand twitches away a little, but then she is shrugging the strap down into his hand. 

“Better late than never,” she chides. 

“I thought you were my assistant,” Okabe quips. 

Kurisu rolls her eyes. 

“Stop pushing your luck until after I have a shower,” she says. 

She pushes the door open and steps over the threshold. 

He stands outside the door, staring at her long, red hair. 

“Are you going to bring me my bag or not? It’s got my clothes and toothbrush in it, and if you start some kind of hostage situation, I might weaponize my plane breath against you.” 

“Shower?” Okabe asks, belatedly. 

Kurisu turns and looks at him, hand on her hip. For a second, it seems as though she is going to continue making him feel ridiculous, but then he sees the blushing red cover her nose and her cheeks and her neck, and he can’t help but smile. It shows up even in the dark hotel room, back-lit only by the slit in the dark curtains. 

“You can drop the bag and go if you don’t think you can _handle yourself_.” 

Okabe blinks at her, wondering if she _realizes_ the two possible interpretations. 

She makes a disgusted noise and reaches out to _take_ her bag from him. 

He allows it without a fuss. 

“I’ll… see you tomorrow, then?” he asks. He looks down at his shoes, wishing he didn’t feel disappointed or afraid. 

“If you can behave and wait for thirty minutes, you can hang out until I go to sleep,” Kurisu offers abruptly. 

He is surprised, but he takes the bone she throws him and steps into the room. It occurs to him that to anyone in the world watching that they would assume, as he closes the door, that he is about to take advantage of her. Only, he never would, even if the thought does make him so flustered that he has to remove his coat before sitting down on the end of the bed. 

“Do you want help… _unpacking_!” he says, exclaiming the last part as he watches her rummage through her bag near him on the other corner of the bed. Her eyes had flared with anger and suspicion, but then the fire goes out of them. 

“You go through my stuff and you’re dead,” she warns dryly. 

He nods and doesn’t say a word about how the thought of ‘dead’ around her makes him feel a little ill, still. He breathes in and looks at her, reminding himself that she is safe and that this world is at relative peace. 

“Sorry,” Kurisu says, and he is so distracted that he doesn’t know why. She takes an armful of items around the corner into the bathroom and closes the door a bit loudly. He hears the pipes start to pour water. 

It is a comforting more than a _distracting_ sound. 

His feet on the floor, he doesn’t really think much of it as he leans back on the bed, staring up at the ceiling. His eyelids grow heavy, and before he knows it, they are opening again and he hardly knows where he is. 

“I thought I was supposed to get to sleep,” Kurisu says from above him. She is wearing pajamas and toweling her hair dry, even though it’s not quite dark out on the winter afternoon. 

“No one’s stopping you,” Okabe replies groggily. He knows he needs to sit up, but as he looks at her – getting ready for bed – something in his chest _aches_. 

He is startled the rest of the way awake when she seems to call his bluff. With a sudden thud, her bag hits the floor beside the bed. She sits beside him but with a body’s space between them. She stretches back on the bed. She’s shorter and a bit further up, so her feet barely dangle. 

“Uhm...” Okabe mumbles, sitting up and rubbing the back of his neck, a bit scandalized at the fact that she would _lie beside him_. 

“I’m tired, but… I brushed my teeth now, and I missed you. Tell me… what’s been going on here?” Kurisu asks. She looks at him with bleary eyes and looks at the hand he braces himself against. He wonders if she wishes to touch it as much as he wishes she would, and he knows he would do anything she asked, too.


End file.
